I'm not totally sure of the validity of the registration because of the date, as it's dated almost 27 years after publication (1961-01-19). But I thought I'd better raise the question since I put one of the files up. I found no previous registration.

That one is PD. The registration you found is just an initial registration. They also needed to renew the copyright before the end of 1989 to secure the second term of copyright.

The terms of the 1978 act allowed movies that had been released with a notice to be registered at any time before the end of the 28th calender year. Many rights owners either did not understand that the initial 28 year period of copyright starts from the year in the notice, not the registration date, or just failed to lodge the subsequent renewal in time. Either way, many owners missed the renewal and effectively released the films that they just spent money on registering into the public domain. Beast of Yucca Flats is one good example of this. Little Shop of Horrors is another famous example.

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm willing to admit that lately I've had a bit of a hang-up about what's PD and what's not, mostly concerning the stuff I've uploaded. It still surprises me finding out how some movies that I would assume to be copyright turn out to be PD, like "Dominique Is Dead", which I'll probably put up soon. Then there are others that turn out to be copyright, like "The Crawling Hand". But that's why uploaders have to be careful. BTW, what's that rule again about trailers, if it was made before 1963 or something like that, are they PD?

Yeah, I had to ask, though. Makes me wonder about some of the trailers I put up. Was it 1963 or before it's ok? I'll have to reclarify that and go through the trailers I put up to see if any of those have to come out. Yep, I got some work to do.

Thanks for posting that link, Cosmicola. The material there gives one a lot to think about, as there were a lot of points brought up. Quite a few trailers I put up are to foriegn works, like Hammer Films, so what I'll do is post links to them later to check and make sure they're ok or not, and also check on all the newer stuff as I bring it in. That may seem a bit redundant, but again, better safe than sorry.

Remember, it's the origin of the trailers, not the movies that are in question here. If it is a pre-1964 US trailer regardless of the country the film was made in, it should be OK. Hammer films, for instance, mostly had different titles in the US so distributors made their own trailers. Also, there were many double-bill trailers for film pairings in specific regions of the US (The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb & The Gorgon - did not play together in the UK but there is a dreadful double-bill trailer with a jingle/song/rap for the US).

Essentially, a trailer for 'The Creeping Unknown' would be fine, a trailer for 'The Quatermass Experiment' might not be.

I don't know specifically about the trailers you have uploaded but just don't panic unduly. They may be absolutely fine.

And, I haven't heard of Gatt restoration on promotional materials like trailers so the copyright owners themselves may not even care. As a long time collector of celluloid, I know a lot of super 8 distributors still release trailers(even for relatively recent releases) without reprisals.

OK thanks, I was just concerned about issues of copyright since I had to pull quite a a few items lately. I like to share movies and clips with everybody, but I also want to make sure it's ok for me to do so.